Thursday, May 26, 2011

Stressing

It’s about that time. Well into trimester 3, starting to feel less than comfy in my ‘on loan’ body. I’m destined to get it back (not in the same shape it was before but I knew that from the get go) and the countdown is on. For the first 6-7 months I could almost ignore the fact that I was gestating. This pregnancy, thankfully, has been much easier than my first a decade ago. Makes no sense, I’m scary close to 40yrs of age so it should be harder now. Oddly not so but you won’t hear me complaining! Still I knew the time would come, the end of the (estimated) 40 weeks will bring the inevitable, you know, fully cooked human child.

I know many have that ‘nesting’ instinct thing come about. Mine isn’t so much a nesting instinct as it is the “Shit, what do I need again?” question that keeps repeating itself. New babies, toddlers, children in general come with a need for a lot of ‘stuff’. When you have your first child much of it comes to you via baby showers. And I mean you normally end up with a lot. This stuff should be of use for future children since normal people have 1-3 years between kids. Normal people. Too bad I’ve never been even remotely close to that classification. We got a lot of stuff when we had our first kid. Enough to know what was needed and what was just fluff after we were done with it. Also what was poor quality (brand wise that is) and where quality must be had. Stay the hell away from Graco strollers, they're trash.

The good news, I’m not a first time mom. I know what I absolutely must have and what I can live without. More good news, newborns need 3 things, a car seat, a boob and diapers. The rest can be collected later. It’s nice to have a few other things like receiving blankets and burp cloths but really, the main 3 will do ya. Needless to say I have just about nothing from my first kid’s baby days. It’s been almost a decade and we’ve moved I don’t know how many bazillion times, that stuff is looong gone. All I have left is some heirloom stuff that will be used of course. My gf threw a baby shower for me and it was wonderful. A small bunch of moms who had no intentions whatsoever of bringing their children and every intention of drinking alcohol. I don’t think the baby was even mentioned throughout. Perfection right? *side note, I'm one of those women that can't stand showers, baby, bridal, whatever, and weddings too, hate 'em* I think the main thing we came up with was a need to have a girl’s night out once a month. Moms need to do this more don’t you think?

Back to my main point though, L&D day is coming at a relatively quick clip. I need to get my stuff together and have it all ready just in case baby makes an early surprise appearance. Do I expect it? No, I’m pretty good about keeping baby in until she’s done cookin’. My first came at 39 weeks though and since I’m getting pretty regular level 2 ultrasounds I understand this baby is bigger than my first. I’m not that big a person (5’) and with my first I think my body had just reached max capacity at 39 weeks. If this one is bigger then I don’t know when my body will decide to give the little bugger the boot. Anything after 32 weeks is game so 32 weeks (this Saturday) is my countdown time. It’s when I need to make sure I’m prepared for imminent baby arrival.

Of course no one is really prepared but I’m talking like washing all of the clothes and diapers (oh yeah, we’re going cloth this time around) and car seat covers, receiving blankets, the stuff from the baby shower needs to be unpackaged. Oh yeah, I’m so not on it yet. My meeting with the possible doula isn’t until June 11th, sheesh! That’s not my fault though, she’s going on vacation before then. We have toured the L&D stuff at the hospital though so at least I’ve done the admission paperwork and we both know where I need to go come explosion time. I still need to pack a hospital bag but I doubt I’ll even bother to do that until I’m in active labor. Don’t make fun, it’s the way I roll. Some things will always be a last minute thing for me. I may have a written list of what I need but it won’t go in a bag until it has to.

I already had my maternity photos done and let me tell you, it was incredibly awesome. Last weekend we have friends from San Diego who now live in Plano come down to do the shoot. They have their own photography business CLM Creative, and I just could not ask for anything more. We spent the morning going to buy props (Mona had a particular theme in mind) and then the afternoon doing the photos. By the end of the day we were all blown but it was so much fun! We had planned this so I wasn’t so far along that I looked huge, bloated, and swollen and the kid was still in town. Our kid goes to San Diego every summer, she’s 25% Cali 75% Texan, but not until schools out. Next week. Yeah we cut it close but it all worked out. Once I get permission from my friends I have a few pics I can show you. They haven’t all been processed yet though so patience.

So the pics are done, the hospital toured, I’m assuming I can lactate (been there done that), I have the bucket car seat (I still need to get another one she can grow into), and I have the diapers (Fuzzi Bunz smalls, prefold newborns). Just need to do several loads of laundry to prep them and all will be good. Never really been good with the housework though so we’ll see about that laundry.

Wish me luck! I’m so going to need it…

Oh and you'll notice I never once mentioned being stressed about labor or a successful VBAC. I've done labor before, I know how it feels. 20 hours of it in fact. Just because it ended in a c-section doesn't mean I didn't get the pleasure of experiencing labor for 20 hours. And thing to note, labor ain't got nothing on an aneurysm as far as pain is concerned. My scale of 0-10 in terms of pain is not like yours, full labor to me rates around 7-8. Brain exploding? Now that's closer to a 10 and until you reach unconciousness (not an easy peasy epidural) you'll feel every bit of that pain. Yeah labor, you don't scare me.